CONCERNS have been raised that residents who move to a planned 885-home extension to Barton will not integrate with existing householders.

Residents said they do not want the Barton Park development – on which work will start next year – to resemble the infamous Cutteslowe walls.

These were put up in 1934 by residents to divide private homes from those built by the council.

Oxfordshire County Council ward member for Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst, Glynis Phillips, said: “One of the fundamental issues here is integration.

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“The developers are calling it Barton Park but residents want it to be called the new Barton development so when it is finished it can all just be called Barton.

“The current community agenda is that it is as integrated as possible with the existing community.”

London developer Grosvenor won planning permission for the principle of the homes last year and work is due to start in 2015.

It will have a new primary school, two children’s play areas, allotments and a community hub with sports pitches. Forty per cent of the development will be “affordable”.

Barton Community Association member Pippa Gwilliam, 60, said: “We are all aware we need the housing.

“But we are concerned that Grosvenor and the investors are envisaging this as a better Barton or a more desirable place to live.”

She said she hoped new residents would join the association and added: “We don’t want to see the situation that arose in Cutteslowe when a private estate was built next to council houses, which resulted in a wall between.”

Barton Dog Show organiser Hayley Davies, of Edgecombe Road, said she hoped social housing would go to city residents.

She said: “It would be good to see it going to people born in Oxford as a priority.

“There are enough people in the city who are desperately in need of homes.”

Northway residents are fighting a plan by Oxford City Council to build a link road to Barton Park across the A40 from Foxwell Drive.

Grosvenor said this was vital to link the development to Oxford but Northway homeowners want the land in Foxwell Drive legally protected.

Grosvenor spokeswoman Sorrel Basher said: “A key objective of Barton Park is to ensure that the development integrates with and helps regenerate the surrounding neighbourhoods of Barton, Headington and Northway, establishing social and physical connections and promoting social inclusion.

“There are therefore a number of initiatives built in to the design of Barton Park to aid the integration with the existing communities.”


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